<Begin Segment 2>

MN: How did you feel when your parents said you were gonna move to Fukuoka?

TN: Oh, I don't feel... such a small, you know, good or bad, we just followed whatever parents tell us.

MN: How old were you when you moved to Fukuoka?

TN: I must be about five years old, around there.

MN: Did you speak Japanese when you moved to Japan?

TN: Must have, yes. Parents speak to me Japanese all the time.

MN: Did the children in Fukuoka tease you because you were from America?

TN: No, they treat me good.

MN: Did you get into a lot of trouble in Fukuoka?

TN: No, I don't think so.

MN: No fights?

TN: No.

MN: How about your teachers in Fukuoka? How did they treat you because you were from America?

TN: There's no difference, they treat me good.

MN: When you moved to Fukuoka, did your parents return to the United States? Did your parents return to the United States and leave you in Fukuoka?

TN: Yeah. My mother and my sister and Kenzo lived in Fukuoka, then my father came back to United States.

MN: When you were attending high school in Fukuoka, what was it like in Japan because the military was becoming very strong.

TN: Yes, very strong.

MN: How was, what was it like? Share with us what Japan was like.

TN: I have a schoolbook there. The top one. They give you, just like the military, they give you rifle.

MN: So they taught you to use a rifle in high school?

TN: Yeah, once a week they trained. We...

MN: So it was like a military school.

TN: Not exactly, but --

MN: No, but that's how they were --

TN: Once a week, you know, they... and you have to sign the flagpole and all that.

MN: In high school, if you were asked to fight and die for Japan, would you have done so?

TN: Not exactly. Obviously die for Japan, but there was lot of incident in China, and lot of people grabbed the bomb and sacrificing, and they glorified. And I thought, "Oh, that's something." [Laughs]

MN: Well, Japan in the 1930s, they controlled Manchuria, Korea, parts of China.

TN: Yes.

MN: While you were in high school, did you think Japan would go to war with the United States?

TN: I doubt it, because they was just minding themselves, trying to build up a country. And they need a place to expand. So the people in Japan is really, get together and push in some way. But I never thought they're gonna fight against the United States.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.